Either way, if we get renters or a buyer it will make things easier. If we get a buyer, we can pay the remainder of the principal on house one, and then take the profit and refinance house 2 for a lower note. Or if we get renters, the rent will cover house one and some of house 2.

We'll probably still need to sink some cash into house one to make it qualify for FHA which is all most people can get these days. We had to pass on a few nice houses in our search because they didn't qualify for one reason or another.

Bureau of Land Management. It means, "free to go ape" so long as you aren't breaking any laws or burning down the hillside. It's one of the least restrictive public lands. National forests are a bit more strict. National parks are the worst. You can hunt and camp almost anywhere on BLM as long as they haven't developed some kind of limited use plan because of an endangered mold spore or something.

Congratulations. Thats a beautiful view you have, and easy access to BLM land is a giant plus.

Also looking forward to you getting your shop set up and operational.

« Last Edit: August 24, 2012, 05:48:09 AM by Wilderbeast »

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Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Thanks everyone! We are going to start the moving process today. I'm going to be checking in on my phone as often as I can so if you guys need anything I will still be available here and there today. Hoping to get the internet moved up to the other house soon as well.

Congrats PW on closing on your new house. I get to start the roller coaster now you jumped off and I got on. We are signing selling contract today with a preapproved buyer for our house 45 days to close.

Congratulations PW!!! I know this was a LONG Process for you. I'll be out closer to ya the week of the 3rd of September. Son is Graduating Marine Boot Camp on the 7th in San Diego, and we are going to be there. I'll try to take some pics to post up. AGAIN...

Today I am going to be building a railing for the deck to keep my daughter from falling off. It should be a pretty easy project. Just measuring, sawing, and some deck screws. I'm also adding some lattice to the underside of the deck to keep her from crawling under. It's going to be nice when it's finished. This is one of the biggest few projects that need to be done to the house.

I have been fooling with a new idea on and off while slowly getting things moved. Once I get the shop set up again, I am contemplating setting up a "shop cam". I've been messing around with an ip cam app for one of my old android phones, and I now have it functioning as an ip camera. This means that I can forward the camera port with my router, then using a DDNS service, access the camera feed from the internet using any common browser, or an android app for camera monitoring.

Anyhow, the thought occurred to me that it would be cool to set up a camera in my shop once I have it back up and running. Then folks can watch me make knives. The only problem with this ideas is that each person that views the camera would increase the upload data I use, so it would have to be limited to one or two people, most likely the person who's knife I'm building at the time.

Ok, I got a little time to take some pics of the new house. I didn't get any of the garage yet because that is still a major work in progress. I was vacuuming up rat poop (after spraying with bleach and while wearing a respirator) in the garage loft this morning. So it isn't without it's faults, but it is worth the extra effort to fix it up for sure.

So this is the room that will be my office/man cave etc. I have a futon in here so it can double as a guest bedroom, or for those nights when I'm "in the doghouse" so to speak. it's got a vaulted ceiling and exposed beams, a recessed bookshelf area, and a small closet. It also has a great view with a large window and sliding glass door.

Here are a couple of shots inside the office.

Here is a shot of the office from the outside. You can see my reflection in the window.

Just past the porch is the roof to the root cellar. It's full of mice and decades old preserves. It will need to be mucked out some time and mouse proofed but then it will be a nice functional cellar. The next panorama shot was taken standing on this roof.

View from root cellar roof.

The front of the house has a couple of fountains that drain into a little watercourse that drops into a sump and recirculates. they previous owner had it installed with a toilet tank float in the sump so when it loses water to evaporation and seepage (and thirsty critters) it tops off the system automatically.

The pine tree in the front yard is dropping tons of pine nuts right now and the squirrels and chipmunks are going ape out there stuffing their cheeks.

Some views from the driveway.

View from the living/dining room out the front of the house.

Vaulted ceiling with exposed beams.

View out the living room window to the back of the house. You can see the root cellar roof there again.

Here's that gas fireplace that I wish had been left wood burning. But it is still really awesome to even have a fireplace at all. Growing up I never lived anywhere that had one.

My wife and I have been here almost 2 weeks and we still wake up every day in awe of this place and how lucky we are to have been in the market for a house right when this one came up for sale.

We had looked all over the state. We spent over $1000 in gas driving around for months looking at houses and there was always something wrong with them. They were too far away, they were manufactured homes so they wouldn't qualify for the loan we were approved for, they didn't have a garage. The roofs needed replacing, they had high radon levels, etc. We had two different places under contract and the deal fell through because one was non-conforming to the rest of the houses in it's area, and the other one the sellers refused to make the necessary repairs in order for the house to qualify for the loan.

We had given up hope and resigned ourselves to just living next to those awful neighbors. Then the very next day after the last house fell through, we see these for sale signs go up. This house is only a few hundred yards from our old house4, but it is on a big 2.34 acre lot and is right in the middle surrounded by tree and very private. We are still very close to my in-laws so our daughter can still see her grandparents. Really the only thing we didn't like about the area was our neighbors. And we probably wouldn't have cared about that (or even moved) if we didn't have kids. But all in all it worked out well. I still have a TON of work to do caulking and foaming little gaps, painting, etc. and then I will need to build some work benches and install shelves but the garage has enough room to make a decent knife shop, and has a little side room that will make a good leather shop as well once it gets cleaned up. i'll get pics of that too sometime before I get started and then after the shop is put together. My FIL gave me a band saw he had sitting in his garage unused so I'll clean it up and have a nice tool for making scales out of found materials some time too.

Anyhow, that's the latest. Thanks to all of you for your support and kind words.

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Thanks guys! We are already living in the new house. And we are moving a little bit at a time each day, kinda taking it easy. I bought a bunch of those plastic storage totes from walmart and will go fill them up, then bring them to the new house and unpack them and put everything where it's supposed to go. I think this will make it so we have everything better organized in the long run. 5 years ago when I moved out to Utah from Louisiana we got into a really small house that was basically gutted in the middle of a remodel. We had to finish building the house with the help of my in-laws and all that while trying to live in it at the same time. I was "living out of boxes" and never really unpacked everything because the house was so small. Whenever I'd want to get something I hadn't used in a while I would have to move a bunch of boxes around to find the box I wanted, then I'd have to dig through everything in that box to find the thing I was looking for. I think this new place has enough room that I will finally be able to organize things so that I have access to them all. That first house we got so cheap it cost about half what a new full size pickup truck costs. We'll get at least double when we sell it just from all the work we put into finishing it, plus the little shop I built out back.

I won't say what we paid for the new house but I will say that there are a lot of big decked out RV's on the highway that cost more than what we paid for this house. It was really the deal of a lifetime. The guy who was selling it lost his wife 2 years ago and he decided to move back East top be closer to his kids and grandchildren. He actually had it under contract with some friends of his late wife before he even listed it for sale publicly. My wife knows the lady who was going to buy it. But she and her husband decided to back out because they didn't want to do all the work fixing it up and they thought the kitchen was too outdated, etc. When we heard they were buying it we were sad that we never got a shot at it. Then when we saw the signs go up we called the realtor that day and had it under contract within 6 hours of it being listed for sale. It was a little more than we wanted to pay, but then again every house is a little more than you want to pay. So we'll just have to be frugal for a while and do most of the work ourselves. I have been doing the cleanup, little repairs, helped my FIL install a gas line for the dryer, we built the deck railing, I replaced the locks on the doors, etc. There still remains a lot to be done. But there is a lot less to do than there was a week ago.

Way to go, PW! It looks like you scored a nice place. How long before you set-up a permanent camp? LOL.

GB, I only just got that you meant it literally, a permanent camp!

I don't know about that yet, but I definitely want to set up a "winter camp" site somewhere on the property to enjoy a nice walk and a fire in the snow. I can't find any of the property markers and there are no fences though. So short of hiring a surveyor (which is too expensive IMO) I don't really know where the boundaries are.

I have seen a copy of the subdivision plat at the realtor's office and I will need to get a copy of it. But even that didn't have lat/lon coordinates on the property corners (they never do). It does have bearings and distances from other property markers, but that presents a few hurdles. First, you have to know where a couple of existing property markers are to establish a baseline. Then you need a the very least a pocket transit which typically run in the $300-$500 range, or a real surveyor's theodolite which costs as much as a new car.

Then you have to have permission to dig around on and travel over other folk's property to find the markers, and to some extent trim vegetation in order to clear a line of sight to the next marker. Else you must use a little trigonometry to bypass the obstruction without cutting it down.

My plan is to see if the county's GIS database has a surface ownership plat overlay that can be loaded onto my handheld GPS, and then I will go to the property corners as best I can with about 10 foot accuracy and then see if I can find some property markers with my metal detector.

I know the county has some GPS files that work with Garmin receivers. It's just a matter of whether they have the property lines marked. I'll bring a camera when I go and see if I can find them. I'll be stoked if I do.

Way to go, PW! It looks like you scored a nice place. How long before you set-up a permanent camp? LOL.

GB, I only just got that you meant it literally, a permanent camp!

I don't know about that yet, but I definitely want to set up a "winter camp" site somewhere on the property to enjoy a nice walk and a fire in the snow. I can't find any of the property markers and there are no fences though. So short of hiring a surveyor (which is too expensive IMO) I don't really know where the boundaries are.

I have seen a copy of the subdivision plat at the realtor's office and I will need to get a copy of it. But even that didn't have lat/lon coordinates on the property corners (they never do). It does have bearings and distances from other property markers, but that presents a few hurdles. First, you have to know where a couple of existing property markers are to establish a baseline. Then you need a the very least a pocket transit which typically run in the $300-$500 range, or a real surveyor's theodolite which costs as much as a new car.

Then you have to have permission to dig around on and travel over other folk's property to find the markers, and to some extent trim vegetation in order to clear a line of sight to the next marker. Else you must use a little trigonometry to bypass the obstruction without cutting it down.

My plan is to see if the county's GIS database has a surface ownership plat overlay that can be loaded onto my handheld GPS, and then I will go to the property corners as best I can with about 10 foot accuracy and then see if I can find some property markers with my metal detector.

I know the county has some GPS files that work with Garmin receivers. It's just a matter of whether they have the property lines marked. I'll bring a camera when I go and see if I can find them. I'll be stoked if I do.

Sounds right up my alley . Send me a plane ticket and I'll throw the Brunton and tripod in a suitcase and be right out

PS.......I can sleep on the futon

« Last Edit: September 05, 2012, 10:18:55 PM by wolfy »

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The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX

PW: You really have some gorgeous views out your windows. Referring to OP's pamper thread: I would pamper my self every morning with a cup of coffee looking out of the windows at that beautiful scenery.

Well I got out today and took another walk around, this time with the GPS and the county overlay map. However I forgot two vital things. one was changing the map datum to the one the county used, NAD83, and the other was my metal detector.

Anyhow, I did find a section corner. The subdivision was surveyed, staked and platted in 1977 and I got a copy of the plat from the recorder's office today for $5 and it looks quite a bit different from the county GIS dept. map. I exchanged some emails with the GIS department and they told me they would get back to me with some info after they had a chance to take a look at it. The recorder told me the GIS guys had been in there pulling the same plat map earlier in the day so it looks like they really took my request seriously.

Anyhow, I asked them to give me coordinates for the property corners on the plat map so we will see if they get back to me with those.

In the meanwhile, I ordered one of the $39 deal extreme Chinese copies of a Brunton pocket transit. You have to balance the needle yourself and there is no dampening but they otherwise receive favorable reviews. If I really like the compass and use it a lot I'll order a real Brunton one day.

Anyhow, during my little hike I saw plenty of things that may or may not indicate prior surveys. There were some trees cut down close to places where my GPS indicated the property corners were supposed to be. BUT, I was using the wrong datum and the map doesn't match the plat. So I could be off by several yards from where the actual corners are supposed to be.

However (and here's the part Wolfy might find interesting) one of the boundary points of the subdivision falls right on the intersection of 4 townships/ranges. There are only two lots in the subdivision that were ever developed, and ours is one of them. The rest of the lots were sold but they have yet to be built upon and it doesn't seem likely that anyone will for a long time. The road isn't even paved past our driveway, nor are there any utilities run past where our lot is. Anyhow, after having no luck spotting any rebar or old axles sticking up out of the ground where the property corners might be located, I decided to try to find the township corner marker. Well this time I had success! There were human footprints leading up to it from the road, and when I got close it looks like a surveyor recently flagged it with fresh tape.

The good news is that with this known point, my laser range finder, and the pocket transit (when it gets here) I should be able to find other markers and work my way along the perimeter of the subdivision until I find one of our own property markers.

Here are a couple of pictures of the township marker. This is the intersection of 4 different township/ranges that each contain 36 square mile sections. So it's a pretty neat thing to find.

ABSOLUTELY COOL Can you get a close-up of the top of that marker and is it made of iron? If it is, there should be two short non-magnetic cement posts w/bronze caps embedded in the tops nearby (within about 150 yds.) that are used to triangulate the iron one. They couldn't survey with a plumb-bobbed magnetic compass transit set-up over the iron one, but the auxiliary markers could be used for that purpose.

If there's an iron triangle with a dot in the center of that iron one, it's a major mark and azimuths were shot in all directions from it. Is it in a place of prominence where you can see a way off in several directions?

What principal meridian and baseline is your legal description based on, township number and range number would be cool, too........that way I can follow you along in your quest. Fun stuff

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The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX

Well the latest is i went out today with my metal detector this time, and slipped on a loose rock. Landed on my ass and I'm in a good deal of pain. i don't think I broke anything but I will be bruised up pretty bad. I've lost fights where I was in better shape afterwards.

Anyhow, I snapped the lower stem on my metal detector in two in the fall as well. So that cost me almost $30 to order a replacement. Better than buying a whole new one I guess.

By the time the parts get here I should be all healed up and ready to go again.

I used to work on a survey crew years ago and essentially you are paying for 1-2 hourly wage guys to come out and dig up some old markers and hold the end of a tape measure, the crew chief who gets paid a bit more, and then the huge fee for the engineer's rubber stamp. I got quotes of $800 to $1200 for a simple boundary survey because they have to drive out here 3 hours from Salt Lake city to do a survey on the previous house (this would have been a requirement in order to buy some city-owned adjacent land, not just to satisfy curiosity).

But it isn't about that. Having worked on a survey crew, it would give me considerable personal satisfaction to find the markers. Sure I could hire a surveyor, but I just can't shake the "do it yourself" mentality I've always had for just about anything. It's why I ordered the replacement parts for the detector instead of sending it off to be repaired. And it's why I built my own deck railing instead of hiring a carpenter. I just would rather do it myself. I can't help it.

Yeah, I don't blame you a bit.....I was just kiddin' Sounds like fun, actually. Wish I were closer, I'd come and help you

You mentioned a few posts back about buying one of those Chinese pocket transits for a ridiculously low price. I've seen them on eBay, but they were running about twice what you quoted. Where were you finding them for cheap? I have a friend that is interested in this stuff, too, but is reluctant to spend any money.....this sounds like a great alternative! Do you have to order them from China and wait for a couple of months, or what...... and have you ever done that before?

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The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX

Yeah, I don't blame you a bit.....I was just kiddin' Sounds like fun, actually. Wish I were closer, I'd come and help you

You mentioned a few posts back about buying one of those Chinese pocket transits for a ridiculously low price. I've seen them on eBay, but they were running about twice what you quoted. Where were you finding them for cheap? I have a friend that is interested in this stuff, too, but is reluctant to spend any money.....this sounds like a great alternative! Do you have to order them from China and wait for a couple of months, or what...... and have you ever done that before?

The review seemed encouraging. I will probably need to do the same and take it apart to balance the needle, but that's no biggie. I haven't ordered from dealextreme before but they accept paypal so I felt pretty safe placing the order. It probably is coming from China but I don't think it will take more than a couple of weeks. I've ordered some USB cable adapters from Amazon that shipped from China and arrived within 2 weeks of ordering them.

I don't expect it to be nearly as nice as a Brunton, but at that price it isn't going to be a big deal even if it totally sucks. That's less than a decent baseplate compass.